A Mother's Response Makes for a Beautiful Moment

“Was she beautiful?”

 

It was a question but also a response.

 

I turned to the man walking next to me on the crowded street. I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to. I had to express my gratitude. A simple thank you. You see, he was the father of a little girl walking a few paces in front of us that had exclaimed, “I just saw another drag queen!” with such excited gusto that one might think she was the winning contestant on Spot! That! Drag Queen!

 

It was the little girl's mother , however, who’d responded, “Was she beautiful?” The response heard round my brain.

 

I was touched. Beyond touched, maybe. I felt something spread through my chest. Expand inside me. This seemingly heteronormative nuclear family with two children—one boy, one girl—was in the gay mecca of Provincetown, Massachusetts, in big-gay July. Bear Week to be exact. So, I had to believe they knew where they were. But this response…this one, from a mother to her child, hit me hard in such a positive way.

 

I immediately thought of my own parents on a vacation with young Michael. First, they never would have taken me (or themselves) anywhere near a gay mecca, so let’s acknowledge that immediately. (Fifty-five years later, they still wouldn’t be caught there.) Second, I can’t quite imagine their response being anything near that positive.

What I can imagine is their fear of queer life leading them to pull me away from the “freaks.” I can imagine my confusion and curiosity instigating a question or two. I can imagine the sound of crickets riding on a wave of silence as they hoped I would let it go if they avoided answering me.

I was so moved in that moment by a mother’s response to her child that I had to say thank you to her also. I mouthed those words as I passed her. She smiled and said, “You’re welcome.” I kept walking, her smile burning its way into my memories. She didn’t make a man dressed as a woman a bad thing, a negative thing, or a we-have-to-protect-the-children thing. Her response immediately normalized, for her child, one of the most historic expressions in queer culture.

 

My brain churned this moment round and round the thought processor for hours. I was very aware of the sensation that flooded my body in that moment: my heart leapt. One might even say that it was Grinch-like and grew three sizes that day. I felt so much joy mixed with a dash of surprise. That’s why I had to say something to the father. I wanted to thank him for giving to his child something that young me recognizes that I didn’t get, something that I still long for.

 

Can I fault my parents for their, shall I say, innocence? Like me, they grew up in that same small southern county where I was raised. Can I fault them for passing their phobias on to me? I can’t really. But I do.

Drag queens are fierce, strong, and bold; loud and visible. I remember when I first started watching drag performances in the early 90s, how much I loved it. I was mesmerized.  The work that went into it. The makeup. The over-the-top glamour. The humor. The precision. The fabulousness. The fear of finding myself in a drag queen’s sights then on the other side her quick-witted, vicious tongue but sitting close the stage anyway. Drag queens are necessary in queer culture, and with respect to the current fear mongering perpetrated by conservatives in the United States, they aren’t going to harm children. Drag is performance. It’s art. It’s theatre. It’s expression. It’s fearless.  And if a parent can explain Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire, then they should have no problem explaining Lil Miss Hot Mess reading a damn story to children in a library. But I digress. 

I can only imagine a world in which I grew up not afraid of being myself. Not afraid of being different. Not worried that different was wrong or bad. Not confused by the pure joy I felt when wearing a pair of my mother’s heels or one of her skirts. Not afraid to ask questions. Not afraid of the answers. I can only imagine how I might now accept my own queerness. How I might accept my femininity. How my insides might feel less twisted with fear as I ponder the possibility of my own transness.

I can only imagine how beautiful it might have been if my own mother hadn’t been afraid. How beautiful it still could be if she would only engage with me about my queer identity.

So, I return to that question: “Was she beautiful?”

Yes. She was. From my perspective, she was a beautiful woman, a beautiful mother, and a beautiful human being. I hope her daughter realizes how lucky she is. 

From The Land of Tethered to the Land of Un: A Journey of Truth Toward Freedom

I can’t believe I’m starting off this piece with a biblical reference, but it seems apropos as most of us have heard the phrase, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32, KJV). That might actually be true. The truth can certainly have a positive effect on people. It can also hurt like hell. But let me focus on the clarity-providing positive aspects of the truth.

I have long avoided asking questions to which I feared the answers. Answers that I suspected I knew but didn’t officially know. In recent weeks, however, I asked some of those questions of my family, and I was graced with a bit of truth in their answers.

Imagine wandering aimlessly down a path cracked with uncertainty, overgrown with weeds of assumption, constantly trying to evade being ensnared by snaking vines of suspicion. This path is in the Land of Tethered and I’ve been walking it for a long time. Avoiding. It’s exhausting. I thought knowing the truth would hurt too much, so I avoided it. I trudged along, believing the “truth” in my head. I let the unspoken “truth” weigh me down. I’ve been rambling down the path wearing concrete shoes.

Turns out I was right about the answers. I know my family loves me. But being loved is different from being supported. Love might allow one to throw out the welcome mat but that doesn’t mean it will open all the doors. There is silence between us. Conversations, when they happen, have moved into the zone of politesse. There is no depth, no revealing honesty. We tiptoe around each other, avoiding topics like religion, politics, anything LGBTQ. We’re on different sides. What I didn’t know is there’s a perception that I am selfish and self-absorbed. Those thorny words pricked my skin. Yet, I know I can be both. But so can we all at times. It was expressed to me that I am the cause of heartbreak, which is never my intention. But sometimes our actions and choices break the hearts of those we love. Sometimes even the questions we ask. My heart has definitely been in a state of break due to the choices made by my family based on a religious moral code. But the most surprising disclosure of this truth-telling delivery was the anger. I was on the receiving end of anger that I didn’t know existed. I’m usually the angry one.

We are not entitled to know what other people think about us. And we would all probably be better served not knowing. But learning the truth, in a way, released me. I was relieved to know that what I had always thought was the truth was actually the truth. I began to accept it. I began to process the fact that I will (likely) never have the relationship with my family that I long for or the type of support from them that I desire.

I was recently speaking with a gallery associate at the Bowersock Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, about the artist/owner’s series of hot air balloon paintings. I had first seen a few of the paintings in the series in June 2021, when I was there to celebrate my 50th birthday. I was so drawn to them. Initially I thought it was because in October 2010, my best friend, on the occasion of his turning 40, had planned a hot air balloon ride in the Berkshires as part of the celebration. However, the weather didn’t cooperate. The winds were too strong that day. The hot air balloon ride was cancelled.

It was nearly eleven years later that I first laid eyes on Steve Bowersock‘s hot air balloons. Set against ominous skies, these colorful hot air balloons were floating toward something, away from something, through and above. They hovered in their dreamscape world, frozen but not. Were they carrying the rider into danger or transporting him to freedom? One painting in particular continues to fascinate me. In it, a rope dangles freely from the basket of the balloon, a body clinging to it. I can’t help but wonder if the person is trying to climb aboard or trying to escape?

(I want in.)

My best friend was on that trip but not in the gallery with me on the day of discovery. I wanted him to see those beautiful hot air balloons. I found him and brought him to the gallery. I hoped he would love them as much as I did. I hoped he would buy one and then by proximity I would be able to view it and contemplate its strange surreal beauty every time I was at his home. Alas, he did not buy one. And while he liked them, he wasn’t actually as drawn to them as I.

I’ve been to Provincetown a few times since that trip. Each time I’ve stopped in the Bowersock Gallery to see if any of the hot air balloon paintings remained. There’s always been one or two available. I’ve always gotten to see them. Ponder them. Wonder what was happening in their world. But on my most recent visit in October 2023, they hung in the gallery no more. Sold. All of them. And it was during that visit, and the aforementioned conversation with the gallery associate, that I began to think more deeply about the hot air balloons.

They’re untethered. They’re free. They can float aimlessly but they can also soar with direction. I want that. I want to leave the path.

Admitting the truth that I am non-binary gave me a sense of freedom. Learning what I feared was true is true gave me a sense of freedom. What am I doing? Why do I keep trying? I want to be accepted for who I am in all of my queer, non-binary fabulousness. Not despite who I am. I’m not sure I even want to keep pushing and trying to educate. I’m kind of tired. And that’s not a bad thing. I think my family is just as stuck as I’ve been but I don’t have to be. I can soar.

I’ve found a clearing at this juncture in the path and I’ve stepped into it. The clouds might be ominous but there’s a sliver of sun shining through. There’s a balloon. It’s beautiful: pink and teal blue patterned in yellow and purple, sage and red. I feel hesitant but I also feel the thrill. I want to untie the rope and get in the basket. I want to soar upward and float freely away to the Land of Un, knowing that even if a major wind blows me off course, I will be fine because just like the balloon I can right the course or even change direction.

Using hindsight, one can always connect the dots of a past experience to that of his present, finding greater meaning in something from then when applying it to now. Maybe the meaning is something he couldn’t see at the time. It’s possible the hot air balloon paintings were simply something I loved because they made me think about my best friend and his canceled hot air balloon ride. But maybe they represented something that I longed for even before I understood fully what that was and how desperately I needed it.

Funny thing about this truth: it wasn’t as heavy as I’d feared. None of it. The fear itself is what was heavy. The fear is what choked the path, kept me tethered to the ground. I don’t believe the truth has fully set me free. Not yet. My fear did not magically disappear. But I know it has helped me feel freer. And while I will probably continue to fear the truth, even after knowing and understanding its benefits (it’s my pattern), my hope is that I will spend less time limiting myself in the Land of Tethered and more time soaring free among the clouds in the Land of Un.